Earnhardt told the media the day after Letarte's announcement that he had confidence in Hendrick and his Hendrick Motorsports executives to make the right choice and that his input wasn’t needed.

“He told you that, but I’m sure at the end of the day, he’d say, ‘Why did you pick him?’” Hendrick said with a laugh Tuesday during the Sprint Media Tour. “He has a lot of confidence in us to make the right decision. But at the same time, the chemistry has got to be there.

Letarte has led Earnhardt to the Chase for the Sprint Cup the last three years and has Earnhardt energized and confident despite only one victory. Earnhardt had finished outside the top 20 in the standings in the two years before being paired with Letarte.

“Stevie is definitely a spark-plug in our organization and I hate to see him go,” Hendrick said in his first meeting with the media since Letarte’s announcement. “But at the same time, I told him I’ve made decisions in my career where I wanted to leave and do something different. I kind of respect that.”

Hendrick indicated that Hendrick had several options in-house or at JR Motorsports, where engineer Greg Ives is a crew chief for Chase Elliott, as well as other engineers "we've let other teams have" such as Chip Ganassi Racing crew chiefs Chris Heroy and Keith Rodden.

“I don’t plan to make any decision right now,” Hendrick said. “We’ve got a whole year to race. We’ve got a deep bench if you look at the guys we have in the organization and the guys through the Nationwide Series and everything else. It’s going to take the right fit.”

Earnhardt obviously will give his opinion — if asked. He said he expects meetings to start in the middle of the year with Hendrick executive vice president Doug Duchardt playing a key role. Chad Knaus, the crew chief of Jimmie Johnson whose crew works in the same shop on the Hendrick campus as the Earnhardt team, also will have a strong voice. Earnhardt also wants Letarte to give input.

“Rick was smart enough to put me and Steve together,” Earnhardt said. “Doug has his finger on that company as well as anybody. Chad knows the culture inside the race shop, Steve knows the culture inside the race shop.

“Steve knows what makes me tick, what makes that team tick. Those are the guys that need to get together and have that conversation. I’d love to be in that room, but I wouldn’t have the intelligence and expertise that they have to make that decision because they have a certain perspective you need to do that.”

Earnhardt expects Hendrick to look in-house first.

“The change with Steve is an opportunity to make this team better, and Steve will tell you that as well,” Earnhardt said. “We’re in a great organization where we have a lot of great people to lean on and I’m sure we’ll look inside the organization first to see if we find that guy.”

For now, Earnhardt is wondering what 2015 will be like but also wants to cherish his last year with Letarte.

“I want to get excited to what 2015 looks like, I want to get excited about what that change is going to be like and how that team can get better and what effect that can have on us as far as performance goes, but I’m going into the last season with Steve — who I love to work with — and I really want to enjoy that moment that is the whole season,” Earnhardt said.